[Gidders]

Originally Posted by Chris

I suspect that most people with visual awareness and certainly photographers will make up very large sections of the small percentages having better computers and decent screens.

That's a bold (and I suspect misleading) assumption but anyway its not about better computers & decent screens - it about which browser you use. Fact 86% of users are using Internet Explorer. Maybe the more savvy users are those using Firefox but even then - Fact only 11% of people are using Firefox & I suspect only a very very small proportion of them know about Duncan's tip. Therefore unless you post images that have been converted to sRGB they will not look how you intend to the majority of users.

Originally Posted by Chris

Although your attachments behave as you predict (on mac anyway, will wire up the mouldering PC and try that later), my own actual photos, saved with 'adobe RGB' do not. Firefox on mac is the only place where they look flat.

Of course your own pics look right on you Mac in Safari - it can read the icc profile, and I would expect them to look flat on Firefox on your Mac (unless you've applied Duncan's tip) - because Firefox as standard cant read the profile - thats the point

Originally Posted by Chris

On PC/XP my pics look normal & identical in Safari & Firefox.

I would expect them to look right on Safari on your PC as it will read the profile. I would not expect them to look the same in Firefox on the PC without the mod. There are a couple of possible explanations:

1. Have you calibrated the PC monitor with something like a Huey, or Spyder? If not it may not be accurately displaying the full range of tones
2. What sort of image are you using for the comparison? Highly saturated darker colours are more likely to show the difference. If the image is, say, a landsacpe with a fairly even tonal range the difference will be far less noticable.

Originally Posted by Chris

There is also the fact that on one's own computer, if you do not have all programmes set to use the same colour space, the same image will appear different according to in which prog a particular stage of editing is taking place.

Not true. If you are using programmes capable of reading icc profiles and working in different colours spaces, then the program will display the colours correctly on screen irrespective of the working colour space.

Try this. the attached test file is the one that I downloaded (its just been resized) in Colourmatch RGB space WITH an embedded icc profile. NB if you are using a browser that doest read profile it will appear more saturate than either of the two I posted yesterday. Download it and then open it in you editing programme with the programme working space set to , say Adobe RGB. In Photoshop you get a profile mismatch warning and the option to either use the embedded profile, or convert to the working space. Which ever you do, the image looks the same ON SCREEN. The change goes on behind the screens & Photoshop then interprets it and present the colours accurately.

Originally Posted by Chris

This is nothing to do with printing, where it is the printer colour profile that needs to be matched to printer and, ideally image.

We agree on this

Originally Posted by Chris

just testing on PC: maybe colour of my pics not quite as bright on Firefox as on Safari, but nowhere as pronounced an effect as on your test attachments Clive. Perhaps its the software conversion from no colour profile to sRGB that is the trouble, not conversion from Adobe RGB to s RGB?

I have not converted to "no colour profile" - one image is in Adobe RGB colour space, the other is in sRGB colour space. What I have done is just stripped out the icc profile that tells Photoshop, Safari etc which colour space is being used. Therefore they don't know - just like Internet Explorer or unmodified Firefox and the display the images "as is" so to speak

For more info on colour management, colour spaces & profiles I see Duncan has just started a thread <<<HERE>>>

I've got some links that I'll toddle over & add